Among the numerous Ervin Santana rumors swirling right now is that the Orioles remain in the mix to sign the free agent right-hander. Rich Dubroff of CSNBaltimore.com asked Orioles executive vice president of baseball operations Dan Duquette about that specific rumor and his response was an interesting one:

I really don’t know what’s real and what’s not real in that case.

Duquette also gave the usual spiel about being happy with the pitchers the team has on the roster while avoiding talking about Santana directly. Santana is turning into one of the weirder free agents in recent memory and “I really don’t know what’s real and what’s not real” is a pretty good summation.

Well, for one, Doc played ball. And as much as Owsley helped lubricate some of my favorite musicians, if I were to reference him it likely would have been a reference to Duquette attempting to replace the AA team’s bus driver with Owsley, only to be told Owsley had shifted his perspective to that other plane.

Old Gator - Mar 11, 2014 at 12:29 PM

Then if I were Duquette, I would’ve gone out and gotten Neal Cassady to drive the damned thing. Just imagine a cross between Bull Durham and The Electric Koolaid Acid Test.

I have this suspicion that ES will keep every team in the running hanging on JUST long enough to piss them off and have them back out.

Perosnally? I would like to have him here. Despite what everyone on these ES threads say about OPACY being a hitters park, I am fully aware of what our rotation looks like now and I cannot see how he would NOT be an upgrade over the current rotation. It’s not like every pitcher that comes to the Orioles gets shelled. It’s not like we’ve never seen good pitchers do well here. And it’s not like he won’t have a pitching coach working with him throughout the season in the event he does continue to give up bombs. And more so, it would push back one of the back end rotation guys to the pen, bolstering that as well. I’m not expecting him to be any more than a 3. Best case scenario a 2, but it’s a stretch. But being a 3 will still bolster what we have and that’s the stance the O’s made- offer him a contract because he WILL improve this pitching staff.

It’s funny, the park is a hitters park when the Orioles have a good hitting lineup. When they have crappy players, it’s among the worst hitting park in the league. People keep spouting off that there is some sort of magical effect that players get when they come to Baltimore that makes them able to hit better here than anywhere else (Even-though most players home/away splits are pretty even.) At the end of the day, we aren’t talking about Coors here. There is no reason ES can’t perform just as well in Camden as he did anywhere else. He’s a major upgrade over Bud Norris, so I say sign him, especially at a one year contract. Between him, Tillman, Chen, Jiminez, and Gonzalez, the Orioles rotation would look potentially very strong.

Um, so you go to your job because you love it so much? The salary they give you has nothing to do with it? If you were terminated at your current employer, and two other employers were giving you job offers, would you not attempt to get as high a salary as possible? I love when people get all high and mighty when a ballplayer tries to get as much money as possible.

So people who play baseball for a living shouldn’t care about providing for their family? They should break free from human nature and not care about being paid as much as the market will give them? The difference between one million and two million dollars is still one million freaking dollars. Just because it’s more than most of us will ever see in our lives, and the numbers are so abstract doesn’t mean that it isn’t very real for these guys, and how anyone can fault them for caring about how much money they are paid just astounds me.

This is worse then waiting for the season to start. Just sign with the Birds and call it a day. You know you dont want to live in Canada with Justin Bieber and Drake. Come down to Bmore and we’ll show you how its done. Any pitcher who can give you 200+ innings is an upgrade over Chen, Norris, and Gonzo